Its not the Kilt on the Man, but the Man in the Kilt

My mornings have a typical routine that often starts with a blind groping for my phone to shut off the alarm. Once I am out of bed, I check my phone for calls and to find out what is going on with my friends and family on social media. Then bathing, then work. Today’s routine was thrown into shock as the first posting on my Facebook feed was this from friend and writer, Mary Ogden Fersner:

Sadly, Jeff is preparing his body and mind for end of life. Please everyone remember him as the funny, fun-loving, vibrant person he’s always been. He survived juvenile diabetes, beat kidney disease with a transplant, and a leg amputation with a positive attitude and spirit few would be able to muster. Cancer however, is a brutal foe. It has run him over like a Mack truck. This was Jeff on Plaid Night during the 2018 ShipRocked Cruise. He is my heart forever.

Jeff is my friend who except for a brunch last year, has been lost to me as so many friends by time and distance. We reconnected (as many reconnections have happened for me) through Facebook. And since Jeff is not a social media guy, I kept in touched with him through his wife, Mary, and in doing so got to know her. And though I can’t claim to know Mary well, she seems perfectly suited for Jeff, someone who can easily stand toe-to-toe with Jeff in spirit, love, and life.

Though we are both from Orangeburg, SC, I didn’t meet Jeff until I went to Clemson. My first roommate was Baxter Sowell. Baxter and I had gone to high school together. Baxter was good friends with the Fersner clan, and through him I got to know Jeff and his two fine brothers Joey and Johnny. Jeff quickly became a friend, co-conspirator, and mentor. Before I was out of school, Jeff and I shared an apartment. He was the last roommate I had in college.

Jeff (as-well-as all Fersners) is very smart. I did not know their sister well, but the three boys all earned master’s degrees in engineering. Jeff’s was in mechanical engineering and had something to do with heat transfer by radiation in a vacuum. What I remember most about it was when I would go to the bowels of Riggs Hall to visit Jeff where the laboratories are found, he would often demonstrate some of the fun things you could do with liquid nitrogen (the liquid nitrogen was required to achieve as close to a perfect vacuum as would be possible). My favorite demonstration was when Jeff would open the canister and tilt it to spill some on the floor. Briefly the liquid nitrogen would flow out like water upon the floor with a white cloud of cold about it, and before the puddle spread even an inch it was gone, evaporated. Cool.

Jeff was the first person to get me drunk. He along with other friends took me down to the Tiger Town Tavern where I was introduced to the game of quarters. Who knows how many cups of beer I had to chug, but it was enough to make the short walk back to campus a long stagger. There is no hangover like your first hangover. For this, I blame you, Jeff.

Jeff and I used to go downtown to drink, and sometimes we would stop outside the girls section of Johnstone Dorms on the way back to our rooms. With girls looking out the window into the dark of night I would do a “magic” act with Jeff accompanying me on the music, “Da DaDa Tah..Da Da DaDa Tah…” The act consisted of such feats as putting my hands behind my head, and when I pulled them back in front they would be locked together by rings formed by thumb and index finger of each hand. Once I demonstrated the unbreakable bond of those interlocked “rings”, my joined hands would go back behind my head and reappear separated! (maybe you had to be there) Some nights we would take home as much as fifty to seventy-five cents in pennies and nickels and dimes the laughing young women had tossed out the windows to us. By-the-way, I still perform those incredible acts of illusion – just for children. I don’t do it for coins, I just do it for the smiles.

At Clemson, Jeff was on the CDCC (Central Dance and Concert Committee). Through this connection, I was able to help with setting up for concerts by the likes of Stanley Jordan, and Jimmy Buffet. At the Jimmy Buffet concert, while I was onstage with Jeff moving monitors around and laying down cabling I turned to the thin early audience that had already gathered, spread and raised my arms, and yelled, “Save the whales!”

Jeff is the first diabetic I ever knew. Now I have a son-in-law and granddaughter both with type 1 like Jeff. Jeff never let diabetes get him down, and he never let it hamper him in any way I was aware of. There was a particular joke Jeff liked to play on others. As an example, I would be walking down the hall from my dorm room towards Jeff’s when he would run out into the hall with one arm flat against his side and the other wrapped around his body to hold it while yelling, “It’s stuck! It’s stuck! Help me!” all the while with a big grin on his face. When I looked at the arm he held, I would see a diabetes syringe high in the bicep flopping a little. Having seen this often, I would move to the side of him and kick him in the ass as he removed the syringe with a flare and a laugh. This is the Jeff I knew.

Jeff isn’t supposed to die. He is a friend, forever locked into my memory as one of the people that defined my all-important college years for me. And even though he will always be in my thoughts as someone unique and happy and just a little mad, he was supposed to be immortal. As my love and prayers float out to him and Mary, I hope Mary knows that my wife and I are here for her. As my friend lies in the hospital, I hope he knows I love him. I’m a bit angry at God, Jeff was supposed to be immortal.